


Putting Your Ghosts to Rest (and getting your soul back one piece at a time)

by angelskuuipo



Series: Fic-A-Palooza 2016 [4]
Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), Leverage, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Character Study, GFY, Gen, General spoilers for both series and the Marvel Movies (through CA:tWS), specifically Leverage s3ep15 (The Big Bang Job) and MAoS s1
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-10
Updated: 2016-02-10
Packaged: 2018-05-19 13:19:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,197
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5968699
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/angelskuuipo/pseuds/angelskuuipo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Eliot Spencer wasn’t always Eliot Spencer.  He used to be SHIELD Agent Elijah Stone.  Then he went undercover to take down Damien Moreau.  Some things, you just can’t come back from.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Putting Your Ghosts to Rest (and getting your soul back one piece at a time)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [dragonydreams](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dragonydreams/gifts).



> Disclaimer: The shows and characters are not mine. They belong to Marvel and Electric Entertainment. The story, however, is. Please do not repost without my permission.
> 
> Prompt: Leverage/MCU (or Agents of SHIELD) crossover. Option 1) Eliot contracts with SHIELD on occasion. Or used to.
> 
> Written for one of my awesomesauce betas’ extraordinaire, Dragonydreams. This…is not what I set out to write. I was going to try to fit all three of your requests into one fic and it was going to be lighthearted and funny. This is not that. At all. I do hope you like it, though, honey! Thank you for your help over the years as I found my feet as a writer. And thank you for being one of my best friends. ::squishes you:: Big thanks to Shanachie and Snogged for the beta help.
> 
> Written: February 4, 2016  
> Word Count: 2,195

~*~*~*~*~*~

There was a time when Eliot Spencer was a respectable individual. He’d gone by a different name then, but there was a time when he was law-abiding. There was a time when he just worked in the shadows, not lived in them. He proudly served as a Sergeant in the Army Rangers, honing his body into a ruthless killing machine and his mind into a keen tactical weapon- balancing those skills with a love of cooking and music. During his rare downtimes, to keep his sanity, he lost himself in good food and good songs and the occasional lovely woman. 

For as many lives as he’d taken in service of his country, he had saved so many more with his actions. He didn’t like killing, but he knew it was sometimes necessary.

When SHIELD came calling, he thought he might have a chance to get away from the bloodshed. They wanted his mind more than his body. He could read situations better than most and he was creative in his solutions. He rose in the ranks quickly and he enjoyed his job. He made friends that were almost as close as the brothers he served with in the Army. He was partnered with Melinda May and they earned the nickname of ‘The Cavalry’. They were second only to Strike Team Delta and that was only because Barton and Romanoff were a little more willing to cause massive property damage than they were to get results.

Then along came Damien Moreau.

Eliot and Melinda were tasked with going undercover in Moreau’s organization to get close and find a find a way to either bring him in or bring him down. Melinda, going by the name Shelley Wong, got in through social contacts and made herself an invaluable resource for possible clients. He went in as an enforcer. His cover’s name was Eliot Spencer.

The things he had to do to get in close to Moreau broke something inside him. They were under for six months, but they made their case. When he asked for extraction, the supervising agent said he’d pull Melinda, but denied him. Told him they didn’t have enough proof and he needed Eliot to stay in a little longer. Eliot called bullshit, because he knew damn well they had provided plenty of evidence. He practically begged for an out, but John Garrett refused to pull him.

Eliot went over Garrett’s head and called Phil Coulson. He and Melinda were pulled within two days, their covers still intact. He stayed long enough to see that Garrett was censured for endangering an agent in the field, took great pleasure in punching the smug son of a bitch in the face, and then he quit. There was no way he was staying in an organization that treated their people as disposable, that would sanction the things he had to do just to keep his cover. There was no honor in that. He might be more monster than man after what he’d done, but he still knew about honor. Melinda didn’t leave with him, but she didn’t ask him to stay either. She told him she’d asked to be reassigned to Coulson and her transfer had been approved. Coulson was a stand-up guy and Eliot was fairly certain he’d take care of her. He wished her well and he walked.

He didn’t look back.

He kept the name Eliot Spencer, because Elijah Stone died on that op. He didn’t deserve to carry that name anymore. He continued to cook, because a man had to eat, but he stopped singing. He still enjoyed the company of the occasional lovely woman, but he put aside any thoughts of it lasting more than a night. He wasn’t fit for that kind of life anymore.

Eliot spent a lot of time getting his head on straight after that. He had blood on his hands that he could never wash off. He didn’t mind most of the red in his ledger, but those six months were going to haunt him for the rest of his life. He made some pretty bad choices in the beginning, but he eventually found a path he could walk and not hate himself for. It took a few years, but he found his peace and put his demons to rest. He could sleep again. Most nights.

When he hooked up with Nate Ford and the rest of the team, something settled inside him; like he’d gotten a piece of this soul back. _This_ was where he was supposed to be. _This_ was what he was supposed to do. He might still be knocking heads, but he didn’t kill, and it was for a good cause, a righteous cause. He built a life and a dysfunctional, patchwork family that drove him to drink on more than one occasion, but also made him smile. He was learning to be happy. He even started singing again.

Then Damien fucking Moreau slithered back into his life, into his _team’s_ lives, and he wondered what the fuck any of it had been for. He thought about calling Melinda, but there were too many years between them. He didn’t want to get on SHIELD’s radar again, not anymore than he already was anyway. He wasn’t foolish enough to think they hadn’t kept an eye on him, but there was no sense inviting that kind of trouble.

So he kept his head down and did his job and tried to keep his makeshift family safe. His plan worked until Nate decided to take Moreau head on and Eliot had to open up the box he’d stuffed his demons into just to keep them all alive. 

He stoically accepted the betrayed looks Hardison sent his way. He pleaded with Parker to let his ghosts lie, because he wouldn’t lie to her and he didn’t want to see the horror in her eyes if she pushed him to relive that hell. He endured the wary looks Nate and Sophie gave him and he proved himself all over again. He didn’t mention SHIELD, because whether he was working for the so-called good guys or not, he’d still done horrible things. 

He hated Nate a little bit for boxing him into a corner and making him pick up a gun again. It didn’t matter that it still felt like an extension of his hand. He hated the damn things. But he did what needed to be done and they managed to drop the sick fuck into a dark hole that he wouldn’t be getting out of anytime soon.

If he took a little more pleasure in watching Hardison drain Moreau’s accounts than he normally would, well, that was his business and nobody else’s. It might be petty, but he was glad SHIELD wouldn’t be getting their hands on Moreau’s money. They’d dropped the ball somewhere if he was still free after what The Cavalry had put together on him. SHIELD didn’t deserve to benefit from the Leverage team’s efforts.

Life, well, he wouldn’t say life went back to normal, because normal didn’t really apply when it came to any of them, but the team went back to doing what they did best. They helped people. It was certainly never boring. Then another ghost came back to bite them all in the ass, but it wasn’t just on Eliot this time. They’d created this particular ghost together. 

He had to admit, if only to himself, that he was impressed Victor Dubenich had the balls to take them on a second time. They might have just sent him back to prison if he hadn’t involved Jimmy Ford, if he hadn’t _killed_ Jimmy Ford. Eliot knew all about problems between fathers and sons, but in the end family was family. Dubenich deserved every last thing Nate had planned for him, but Eliot knew Nate wouldn’t be able to live with himself with that man’s blood on his hands. Nathan Ford was a dangerous man, no question, but he wasn’t a killer. 

It wasn’t who Eliot was anymore either. He would kill if he had to, but he’d come far enough from who he’d been that his first instinct was to find a different way. He’d worked that way for years now, long since before he signed onto Nate’s crew, but now it was like he really believed it. Eliot Spencer wasn’t a killer.

Nate may have kept a piece of his soul, but Eliot got a piece of his back.

He didn’t really want to move, but Boston wasn’t safe for them anymore. It had taken them too long to put the pieces together of the con Dubenich and Latimer were running on them. They were burned. It sucked, but it happened. They couldn’t win every time.

They went their separate ways for a few months to let the heat die down and so they could get their heads on straight. During that time, the world lost its collective mind. Aliens. Honest-to-God aliens attacked New York City. Eliot was glad he was in Europe at the time, because he did not want to deal with Hardison freaking the fuck out anywhere near him. If he watched the footage more than once, well, he was just making sure Barton and Romanoff were alright. It didn’t surprise him at all that they were smack dab in the middle of that insanity.

When the call came for them to regroup, Eliot finished up his retrieval job and headed back to the states. He wasn’t sure why Nate had picked Portland for their new base of operations, but he’d give it a shot. Oregon was nice, and about as far from Boston as one could get and still be in the country.

He could have kissed Hardison when he handed Eliot the deed to the brewpub and it had Eliot’s name on it. Of course then he wanted to turn around and smack the man, because he wouldn’t stay out of Eliot’s kitchen. Also? Hardison’s attempts at making craft beers were horrifically awful.

Something was off with Nate, but he couldn’t put his finger on what it might be. No one else seemed to notice anything, but it made Eliot twitchy. Nate was planning something and he wasn’t sharing.

Turned out, Nate was planning the biggest ‘Fuck You’ ever to IYS, Interpol, the FBI, and just about every other alphabet agency there was. Eliot revised his opinion of Nathan Ford. The man wasn’t just dangerous. He was fucking terrifying.

And he was done. Nate proposed to Sophie and they walked away to live whatever kind of life two co-dependent con artists could dream up. Nate left the business to him, Parker, and Hardison and it was up to them to carry on or not.

He could have said no. He had the brewpub and he enjoyed cooking for people. But…he liked what Leverage, Inc. stood for. He liked helping people pick up the pieces and sticking it to the ones that hurt them. So he threw in his vote to continue on with just the three of them. Parker and Hardison looked so damn relieved. Eliot hadn’t really realized until that moment that he was just as much family to them as they were to him.

He got another piece of his soul back.

Eliot was understandably concerned about Hardison playing Mastermind, but once he was in the driver’s seat and not trying so hard to impress Nate, he settled down. Turned out he was damn good at planning. He also listened to Eliot and Parker in a way Nate hadn’t. They found their rhythm and they did good work.

The world around them continued to get a little bit crazier, what with Tony Stark disappearing and then showing up in DC to blow the shipyards all to hell fighting the Mandarin. Then there was the alien attack in London.

A few months after that, Eliot turned on the news and watched Captain America get arrested. Then SHIELD fell and he discovered that the organization that he’d served was rotten to the core. The clusterfuck with Moreau made some manner of sense now.

He needed to take a minute.

They were going to need a new punching bag.

Hardison took one look at the destruction, ordered a new one, and started gathering as much of the information that had been dumped on the Internet as possible. He didn’t ask, and for that Eliot was grateful, but he seemed to know it was important.

Parker gave him an awkward hug and he appreciated it more than she’d ever know.

The last thing Eliot ever expected was to get a call from Melinda May. He didn’t bother asking how she got his number, because it was Melinda. Of course she knew how to get in touch with him.

“John Garrett is HYDRA. We’re going to destroy him. You want in?”

Eliot bared his teeth in a vicious grin. “Hell yes.”

Taking out Garrett wasn’t going to erase the innocent blood on his hands, but it was sure as shit gonna make him feel better.

Some ghosts truly did need to be exorcised.

“Where should I meet you?”

-30-


End file.
